After a few minutes, the door opened, and Michelle’s lilting voice filtered into the room. “You have company, Mr. Carter.” With that, his terrified parents scrambled through the door.
He quickly wiped the tears off his face. “Hey, guys.”
“Nick, are you all right?” Jane cried. “They called and said you were in a car accident, but they didn’t give us any other information! We panicked!”
“Yes, I’m fine, Mom, but-”
“What happened, son?” Bob interrupted him. “Where’s Sara? Is she all right?”
“Sara…Sara was driving. She was killed on impact,” Nick said flatly. Jane’s hand flew to her mouth as Nick squeezed his eyes shut and continued. “We went clubbing, and when we left, she wasn’t over the legal limit, but she hadn’t been feeling well in the first place. She got sick when she was driving, and she lost control of the car. We slammed head on into a car with three girls. One of them died, one of them was fine, and the third has a concussion and internal damage.”
Bob was speechless, and Jane pulled her son into a long, comforting embrace. “Oh, sweetheart, I’m sorry.”
“Why did I let her drive? I should have taken her keys,” Nick stated, more to himself than anyone else.
“Did you try to take them?” Bob asked.
“Of course I did! I knew she was in no condition to drive! Ugh! I figured we’d be okay since the way home from Club Liquid is usually so deserted,” he sobbed. “Now I lost her, and it’s my fault.”
“It is NOT your fault. You didn’t know this would happen, and you said it yourself. She wasn’t over the legal limit. She was sober enough to drive,” Jane reminded him.
“I know, but I had a bad feeling about it. And we killed an eighteen-year-old girl in the process, Mom, and we put another in the hospital!”
“You didn’t know,” Bob repeated. He squeezed his son’s shoulder. “The kids are here to see you.”
“Can I talk to them, please?” Nick requested. “Maybe they can cheer me up a bit.”
Jane nodded and followed Bob out as Nick again wiped his tears away. His siblings came in a few moments later and surrounded him. “Nick, are you okay?” Leslie cried. “I was so worried!”
“We all were, Nick!” Aaron exclaimed.
“I’m fine,” he said softly.
“Then why were you crying?” BJ asked suspiciously. Nick looked at her in surprise. “There are tearstains on your face.”
He looked away, not wanting his family to see the tears that had again welled up in his eyes. “Sara didn’t make it. She died.”
“Oh, Nick, I’m sorry,” BJ murmured. “It was a car accident?”
“Yeah. Sara was driving, and she got sick. I had dozed off, so I couldn’t grab the wheel when the car lost control. We slammed head on into another car and killed an eighteen-year-old girl.”
Aaron climbed up on the bed next to him and leaned his head on Nick’s shoulder as Angel reached for his hand. BJ wrapped her arms around him, and Leslie rubbed his back. Though no one really knew what to say, it was a great comfort to Nick to at least know that they were there.